For a first-year Bates student, the leap from high school to college-level writing can be a daunting one.

You tackle new genres, you look at evidence more critically. And you learn that at Bates, good writing and good thinking are inseparable.

“Colleges are places where knowledge gets created,” says Daniel Sanford, director of Writing At Bates and the Academic Resource Commons (ARC), programs that provide resources for every stage of the writing process, in any discipline.

“When you learn to write and think in that setting, you are figuring out how to participate in the creation of knowledge.”

Claire Sickinger ’19 of Simsbury, Conn., a Peer Writing and Speaking Assistant for Assistant Professor of Asian Studies Nathan Faries’ “Defining Difference: How China and the United States Think about Racial Diversity,” discusses an essay for the class with Zhao Li ’21 of Guangzhou, China, in ARC. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

It can be a steep learning curve, but Bates’ newest writers are supported along the way. Most students take a First-Year Seminar, where professors teach writing alongside subject matter. They walk students through each step of the writing process and offer intensive feedback.

As the fall semester enters its second half, and students look to their final seminar papers, we’ve asked Bates professors and student tutors how new college writers can make their writing clear and compelling, and what common mistakes to avoid. Here is what they told us.

1. Before you start writing, know the assignment

One of the most avoidable mistakes Associate Professor of Politics Leslie Hill sees is not following directions. “Some students will write to the task they think they know, that may be familiar from high school — but the college professor may be asking for something different, in terms of content as well as the level of thinking.”

2. Know thy audience — and thyself

Don’t feel like you have to play the expert, says Professor of Religious Studies Cynthia Baker. “First-year college writers often seem to feel as though they need to present themselves as ‘experts’ in their essays instead of presenting themselves as well-informed and capable conversation partners,” she says.

Professor of Religious Studies Cynthia Baker teaches the First-Year Seminar “The Nature of Spirituality.” Here, in the 2015 iteration of the course, she shows her students a Rosh Hashanah tradition on Mount David. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

When students adopt the “expert” voice, Baker says, they sometimes feel that quoting heavily from sources means they’re not knowledgeable.

“It is far more often the case that professors are looking for students to demonstrate a firm grasp of the course materials and concepts by showing that they can synthesize ideas from a range of course readings and apply them to a particular problem,” she says. “This calls for positioning oneself in an essay as a well-informed conversation partner who thoughtfully and capably draws on a wide variety of others’ insights through extensive quotes and citations, rather than as a solo expert.”

3. Pay attention to genre

Biochemistry major Kenyata Venson ’18 of Memphis meets with Bridget Fullerton, assistant director of writing at Writing at Bates, to discuss her senior thesis on comparing synthesized drugs to herbal remedies for the treatment of glaucoma. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

“Technical writing is very different from expository writing in that there’s no fluff — readers just want what you did in the study,” says Technical Writing Assistant Ruth van Kampen ’19 of Brunswick. “That’s new to a lot of students.”

As a TWA, van Kampen helps biology students, often sophomores, with their writing.

4. Don’t lose the argument

Claudia Krasnow ’18 of Bedford, N.Y., works with Madelyn Heart ’18 of Winchester, Mass., on a paper for a Spanish class. Writing Tutors work among other student tutors in the Academic Resource Commons (ARC) in the Ladd Library. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Writing Tutor Mariam Hayrapetyan ’19 of Valley Village, Calif. recommends this exercise: “Write out the prompt in your own words and when you write, make sure that each paragraph somehow contributes to the prompt.”

Take it to the sentence level, too. “Something that can improve clarity is ensuring that everything in each paragraph relates back to the topic sentence, and each topic sentence relates back to the thesis,” says Writing Tutor Kiyona Mizuno ’18 of San Francisco. “This will help keep the writing focused and organized. I find that outlining can be a useful strategy.”

5. Keep it simple

Zeke Smith ’19 of Weybridge, U.K., a Peer Writing and Speaking Assistant for Associate Professor of Russian Dennis Browne’s course on contemporary European film, works with Henri Emmet ’21 of New York. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Don’t try to sound impressive, advises Mizuno. “A common trend I’ve noticed is sentences that are repetitive, are too long, or try to combine too many ideas. I would encourage students to try not to beat around the bush and to avoid forming long, complicated sentences to fulfill the word count — ideas can get jumbled and confusing fast if sentences get too wordy.”

Zeke Smith ’19 of Weybridge, U.K., who as a Peer Writing and Speaking Assistant helps First-Year Seminar students craft and correct their papers, often takes students through this revising exercise: “I have them reread their draft with a focus on which words can be cut out, and which sentences can be written more concisely. Sometimes finding the exact right adjective or verb can replace an entire description.”

“It is very easy to use a lot of insider lingo, and writers should be conscious of this while they are trying to articulate their points,” says TWA Jackie Welch ’18 of Falmouth, Maine. “They should write as though the reader is familiar with their field but not necessarily with their particular discipline within that field.”

7. Cut the clichés

“Few people use ‘plethora’ right, and when they do, it’s a little precious,” if not downright pretentious, says Professor of French and Francophone Studies Kirk Read. “I would say we experience a plethora of plethoras in my world — that is to say, an excessive usage of this word!”

Adds Hill, “Nothing that comes after the phrase ‘throughout history’ is true.”

8. Revise, revise, revise

Associate Professor of Politics Leslie Hill speaks during a 2016 panel on the recent presidential election. This year, she is teaching a First-Year Seminar called “Race, Justice, and American Policy in the Twenty-First Century.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

“I have often advised students to use an after-the-fact outline or simply go through a draft and highlight their topic sentences,” Hill says. “That will tell you what exists on paper, and you can decide whether that is what you wanted to say or not.”

9. Don’t make the last least.

Bestselling author and syndicated columnist Amy Dickinson discusses her work and tells students how to tell their own stories during a session of “Family Stories,” Kirk Read’s First-Year Seminar, on Oct. 27. (Theophil Syslo/Bates College)

“Leave something for the end of your paper,” Read says. “Conclude without summarizing. Save something for the end, so that we appreciate what your point is and that you have proven it in some way.”

10. Record your paper, then listen to it

Reading a draft of a paper out loud can help you catch mistakes — and get around a fixation on grammar. “I try to tell students not to overworry about the grammar and mechanics of everything, but I am conflicted about that,” Read says. “I do want clean writers — so read your writing aloud. Record it and play it back to yourself to see if it makes any sense.”

“Read a lot of good writing — and read it as a writer,” says Cynthia Baker. “That is, think of yourself as a writer and study what the pros do. When you find course readings compelling, pay attention to how the writers make their content clear and compelling. What strategies do they use? How do they formulate their arguments and ideas? Give labels to those strategies, experiment with them yourself, and put them in your writer’s toolbox to pull out and use in your own writing.”

12. And write!

“It might be helpful to think of writing in any form — journaling, noting, ruminating, fine-tuning —as a daily practice,” says Read. “Something that you turn to regularly and happily. Something that might even center you or help sort you out, like yoga, working out, meditation. For many successful writers, it’s a regular practice — and a joy.”

]]>http://www.bates.edu/news/2017/11/02/outline-read-aloud-avoid-plethora-students-and-professors-share-their-best-writing-advice/feed/1Bates announces faculty promotions including tenure and full professorshipshttp://www.bates.edu/news/2016/05/08/faculty-promotions-tenure-full-professorships/
http://www.bates.edu/news/2016/05/08/faculty-promotions-tenure-full-professorships/#commentsSun, 08 May 2016 15:35:37 +0000http://www.bates.edu/news/?p=100098Learn who's received tenure and a promotion to full professor, and read their "Why I teach" statements.]]>

Bates has announced faculty promotions, including tenure awards and full professorships, effective for the 2016-17 academic year.

“These promotions recognize the achievements of faculty members who personify what it means to be an outstanding teacher and scholar at Bates College,” said Matthew Auer, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty.

“These faculty members teach with passion and purpose, they cross academic and scholarly boundaries with skill, and they are fully engaged members of our liberal arts community and leaders in the academy.”

Recommended by the faculty’s Committee on Personnel and approved by the Bates College Board of Trustees, the promotions have been awarded to faculty members in the fields of dance, economics, English, environmental studies, politics, psychology, and religious studies.

Promotions to associate professor with tenure

Why I teach:“Teaching literature, I can make the most ephemeral dimensions of the American past, whether centuries or weeks ago, tangible and compellingly present for my students, illuminating for them diverse experiences and perspectives.

“Thus, my teaching often foregrounds revealing juxtapositions and unexpected connections, asking students to read literature in relation to broader webs of information and media — maps, newspapers, music videos, and documentary film. I love that the larger pedagogical context of the engaged liberal arts encourages Bates students to draw connections between what they study in my classroom and what they learn elsewhere in the curriculum and observe in the world beyond its walls.

“As an undergraduate, I initially majored in politics, hoping to better understand the systemic roots of social injustice and inequality. I remember vividly the American literature classes through which I first came to appreciate the humanities’ indispensable contributions to the study of politics, identity, and power I’d mistakenly thought the sole province of political scientists.

This is not to diminish the role of aesthetic pleasure in the study of literature and in the classrooms where I teach it, which I hope are equally animated by intensities of attention, curiosity, joy, and wonder. But I also hope that my own students come away from my classes with some sense of what first drew me to literary study as an undergrad — how American literature offers potentially transformative social understanding, challenging us to see the nation’s cultural history with ever-greater complexity and to recognize and reckon with our own ethical implication in the shape of its present and possible futures.”

Eden Osucha has been promoted to associate professor of English at Bates. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Why I teach: “I teach to unleash creativity, critical thinking, collaborative skills, and physical experimentation in my students. They teach me by bringing their unique perspectives, knowledge, and questions from across the curriculum into their dance research.

“In technique classes, we attune ourselves to our physical and social experience with rigor and joy. In creative processes, we put our fully embodied selves at the intersection of ideas and let our questions move us. In the study of theory and history, we learn strategies for approaching dance practice as a model for action in the world.

“One of the most vital contributions that dance studies makes to academic culture is the experienced understanding that the moving body is a medium through which cultures are changed and knowledge is created. The best part of my job is helping students realize their personal ability to grow, change, and contribute creatively to any endeavor that moves them.”

Rachel Boggia has been promoted to associate professor of dance at Bates. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Fields of research: Middle East studies, nationalism and state-building, ethnic conflict, and politics of symbolism

Came to Bates in: 2010

Why I teach: “In all classes, my main objective is to help students be critical thinkers. I also seek to break through the stigmas, myths, and generalizations about the Middle East and Islam by showing the plurality of cultures, beliefs, ideologies, and identities in the region.

“Bates’ emphasis on interdisciplinarity and close interactions between faculty and students provides an ideal environment for my research and teaching. I can effectively push my students to go beyond the easy answers that many sides offer about Middle East politics and to see the complexities and ambivalences of the region.

“I find discussions with students very rewarding as they also help me challenge my own assumptions and think of my research from different angles.”

Senem Aslan has been promoted to associate professor of politics at Bates. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Fields of research: Comparative politics and the influence of international migrants on the politics and economic development of their countries of origin

Came to Bates in: 2009

Why I teach: “One of the missions of Bates College is to ‘engage the transformative power of our differences, cultivating intellectual discovery and informed civic action.’ This mission is in line with why I teach students to evaluate government and politics in a global perspective.

“Learning about the great diversity of governing systems transforms students’ understanding of what is possible in their own country and around the world. It also gives them the tools to think rigorously about whether and how we can reform politics so that citizens everywhere can achieve the ‘good life.’

“Whether citizens achieve the ‘good life’ depends greatly on cross-border movements in and out of countries. But while mainstream debate about migration focuses on how migration affects rich receiving democracies, I try to shake students’ thinking about this question by showing them the effects on migration on sending countries.

“The greatest reward from teaching at Bates is not what I bring to students or the classroom but how teaching persistently brings new and fresh perspectives to the material I work with as a researcher. Each new generation of students arrives with new social norms and ever-shifting concerns about the world around them; they come from around the U.S. and a wide range of countries, and with a range of experiences and class, race, and gender identities. I am always learning from them.”

Clarisa Pérez-Armendáríz has been promoted to associate professor of politics at Bates. (Mike Bradley/Bates College)

Fields of research: Macroeconomic theory and macroeconomic effects of incomplete or faulty information

Came to Bates in: 2012

Why I teach: “There have been many fascinating developments in both macroeconomic research and policy since I came to Bates in 2012. It has been very rewarding to be in an environment where I can both make my own contributions through my research, and where I can incorporate these new developments in the classroom.

“I have been very impressed with Bates students. They are very smart people who expect to be challenged and who work hard to understand complicated and nuanced ideas. I learn a lot about economics from teaching them.

“I am proud to be part of the Bates tradition of encouraging student research at so many levels, including both collaborating with students on academic papers and helping them form and complete their own theses.”

Paul Shea has been promoted to associate professor of economics at Bates. (Mike Bradley/Bates College)

Fields of research: Applied microeconomics and econometrics, with interests in health, labor, and public policy

Came to Bates in: 2008, returned in 2014

Why I teach: “I can think of at least two great reasons why I teach at Bates. The first is that teaching helps keep me on my intellectual toes. As a lifelong learner, I value not only the outlet that teaching offers to talk about interesting ideas with others, but also the stimulation it provides to look back at my own endeavors in new ways.

“The second is that I get to be a small part of the intellectual and personal growth of many truly impressive people. Those relationships represent the most rewarding part of teaching.”

Nathan Tefft has been promoted to associate professor of economics at Bates. (Josh Kuckens/Bates College)

Promotions to full professor

Fields of research: Ancient Judaism and Christianity, gender and religion, and historiography of religion

Came to Bates in: 2008

Why I teach:“Religion asks the big questions — the ones about life and death, love and meaning, good and evil. The field of religious studies explores how people have asked and answered these questions throughout history and across cultures.

“Religions can inspire breathtaking creativity and profound human connection while at the same time authorizing devastating harm and appalling atrocity. A phenomenon this powerful begs to be better understood, and religious studies responds by examining religion as a human phenomenon in its multiple dimensions and effects, using tools drawn from pretty much every discipline you can imagine.

“I teach because I believe that a critical understanding of religion is vital. It’s deeply gratifying (and often quite fun) to pursue big questions and small discoveries with bright, inquisitive students from whom I inevitably gain new insights and perspectives.”

Cynthia Baker has been promoted to professor of religious studies at Bates. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Fields of research: Ecosystem development and history; linkages among atmospheric, terrestrial, and aquatic ecosystems

Came to Bates in: 2004

Why I teach:“My favorite places to engage with students are in the field and while mulling over data. There is nothing like seeing, hearing, smelling, and touching the world to bring questions, possibility, and new understanding to life.

“And, back in the lab, the data show the world from yet another perspective that is made richer and understood differently because we spent time in the field together.”

Field of research: Late-medieval English, French, and Latin literature, particularly intersections between historical and textual culture

Came to Bates in: 2005

Why I teach: “Teaching at Bates inspires me to think everyday about how the past matters: how the Middle Ages, for better and for worse, are not so unlike our own historical moment, and how young people today, our future leaders, can learn from medieval voices — not only to find their own but to forge perhaps a new and more productive way of framing otherness.”

Sylvia Federico has been promoted to professor of English at Bates. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Field of research: Brain structure and function in context of mental health and mental illness, and affective-cognitive processing in healthy aging

Came to Bates in: 2006

Why I teach: “Research is the most powerful form of life-long learning that I know. My role as a professor is to help students build an interdisciplinary foundation that will support decades of vigorous, sustained intellectual curiosity.

Across the Bates curriculum, we encourage students to transition from being passive consumers of knowledge to being active curators and, finally, to junior research colleagues who delight in asking the big, bold questions and who have the right mixture of bravery and humility to attempt to answer them.”

Nancy Koven (center) has been promoted to professor of psychology at Bates. (Josh Kuckens/Bates College)

]]>http://www.bates.edu/news/2016/05/08/faculty-promotions-tenure-full-professorships/feed/1Ask Me Another: Cynthia Baker and the fraught identity term ‘Jew’http://www.bates.edu/news/2010/08/27/ask-me-another-cynthia-baker/
http://www.bates.edu/news/2010/08/27/ask-me-another-cynthia-baker/#respondFri, 27 Aug 2010 18:00:48 +0000http://home.bates.edu/?p=34427Associate Professor of Religious Studies Cynthia Baker is something of an expert on the dynamics of households and communal spaces in ancient Judaism. So when the editors of the book series Key Words in Jewish Studies invited her to submit a proposal, she suggested the word “space.” Sorry, she was told, that’s already taken.

So Baker got right to the point and suggested looking at the word “Jew” itself. Her proposal was readily accepted and, in fact, recently won a National Endowment for the Humanities grant for Baker, who spoke with Bates Magazine editor Jay Burns.

What new do you bring to this topic?

Some studies have looked at the origins of “Jew,” others at the Jew in modern European theater or in contemporary American literature. But no one has conducted an analysis of the term with this kind of sustained attention and historical spread.

When someone asks why the term “Jew” is unique, what do you say?

Being a professor, I generally answer a question with a question. Can you think of any other word that is both a term of great pride and so obviously an epithet that it demonstrates that a hate crime has been committed? “Jew” is not an ethnic slur, but it certainly can function that way. The word “queer” is a taunt that has been reclaimed, but “Jew” didn’t originate as a taunt and often serves as a term of honor.

Was the term always complex?

It derives from a geographic location that the Bible calls “Judah” and, later, “Judea.” But from its earliest appearances, the term “Judean,” from which we get “Jew,” seems fraught and troubled, being applied on the one hand to only some of the people who lived in that region, and on the other hand to people who were unwelcome minorities someplace else.

Will you confront the question of “who is a Jew?”

Absolutely. First, it’s important to know that right up to the cusp of modernity, defining “Jew” preoccupied non-Jews far more than it did Jews. Both the Old Testament and the classical Jewish document, the Talmud, for example, speak of “Israelites,” not “Jews.”

Then what happened?

Christianity. In the New Testament, “the Jews” are used as a foil for what comes to be known as Christianity. Yet most of the New Testament’s primary authors — Matthew, Mark, John, and Paul — were Jews. Depending upon how you define “Jew,” of course. The formation of Christianity is the single most important phenomenon that gives “Jew” its various dimensions today.

Besides the first and the 20th centuries, what other historical eras most inform the term “Jew”?

The next era would be the Jewish emancipation of the 18th and 19th centuries. With the liberation and enfranchisement of Jews who had been largely confined to the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire or the ghettos of Europe came new debates on Jewish identity among both Jews and non-Jews alike. Are Jews a religious group? A separate race? A nation within a nation? The Jew doesn’t quite fit into any of the grand Enlightenment schemes, and we begin to see seemingly contradictory identities imputed to Jews. For example, “the Jew” becomes emblematic of socialism but also becomes the stereotype of the capitalist.

When you really start paying attention, you realize that understanding the term “Jew” is key to understanding the rise and development of Western culture as a whole.

What do you make of the trading of “Jewish” for “Jew”?

Saying “Jewish” softens the word, almost as if there were etiquette involved. But then the question becomes, what’s going on psychologically, sociologically, and anthropologically in that aversion or adaptation?

How will you explore the Holocaust?

I don’t have any radical new insights to offer there. In one sense the Holocaust is unfathomable. Yet at the same time it obviously represents a nexus of historical and cultural dynamics that are nameable and traceable, and to which the term and figure of “the Jew” are absolutely central.

In Annie Hall, Diane Keaton says to Woody Allen, “You’re what Grammy Hall would call a real Jew,” and he replies, “Oh. Thank you.” Why does that line get laughs?

Because it precisely encapsulates everything we’ve been talking about. “Jew” is always two things at the same time, and humor is about concisely encapsulating that kind of collision. In this case, the collision is around the content of the word “Jew” and who gets to define “real Jew.”

Is your own identity relevant to this project?

No doubt. But I wouldn’t say that I’m looking for answers in that respect. My life as a scholar, an occasional public intellectual, a teacher, or even at home in my garden tends to be much more about questions than answers. At dinner the other night, a colleague made the offhand comment: “Oh, Cynthia, she’s always been this kind of liminal character.” The word “liminal” suggests “in between” — the psychological, spiritual, and physical place between point A and point B. That’s where I feel most at home, most myself — and in that sense, this project, this “Jew,” has everything to do with who I am.

“Identity terms” are the words that people use to affiliate themselves and others with particular groups — ethnic, racial, religious, social and so on.

Cynthia Baker, associate professor of religious studies at Bates, recently received $50,400 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support her research into one of history’s most fraught identity terms: “Jew,” a word that can convey praise, pride, prejudice or pure description.

No studies exist that analyze the use and the historical development, from ancient times through the postmodern era, of that term, Baker says. The NEH grant will enable her to research and write a book slated for publication in the “Key Words in Jewish Studies” series published by Rutgers University Press.

The book will map the emergence, evolution and current permutations of the term “Jew.” Baker’s yearlong research will involve experts and archives in the U.S., Europe and Israel, among other resources. She will examine ancient inscriptions and conduct art-historical analyses of images of Jews including those from medieval European churches, manuscripts, modern cartoons, propaganda and current pop art.

“The project is important both in its specificity and as a case study for analyzing the dynamics of identity formation and attribution,” Baker notes in her proposal for the grant. “Who decides the content of identity terms, and how does that content come to be generated over time, within and across societies? How is it that a single identity term — ‘Jew,’ for example — can be made to convey such a broad range of (often diametrically opposed) meanings?”

She notes that worldwide political and social developments make this research more compelling than ever. “In an age of ethnic nationalisms, mass migrations and identity formations across national lines, understanding the dynamics of collective identification becomes an increasingly urgent concern,” Baker says.

Baker will carry out her research in several phases, including the examination of ancient evidence for the origins of the term “Jew,” and the exploration of the term’s many overlapping and competing definitions over time — Christian, anti-Semitic, nationalist, etc.

Baker earned her B.A. at Wesleyan, master’s degree at Harvard, and doctorate at Duke. She has taught at Duke, Cornell, Swarthmore and Santa Clara University. Her research explores ideas about gender, ethnicity and nationalism in the formative periods of Judaism and Christianity and in modern historiography on these periods. Her book Rebuilding the House of Israel: Architectures of Gender in Jewish Antiquity was published by Stanford University Press in 2002.

Baker’s NEH grant is called a Fellowship for College Teachers and Independent Scholars.

The National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 established the NEH. An independent federal agency of the United States government, it is dedicated to supporting research, preservation, education and public programs in the humanities.